The Boeing crisis... a former official was accused of concealing information that led to the downing of two planes

 A federal grand jury in Texas has indicted a former Boeing technical pilot with deceiving federal regulators during the US aircraft manufacturer's development of the grounded 737 Max jet, the US Justice Department said.

The Justice Department said Mark A. Forkner, 49, was charged with deceiving the FAA in connection with materials intended for flight control system training, which was a major culprit in the two separate incidents.

Prosecutors alleged that Forkner provided the FCA with "materially false, inaccurate and incomplete information" about a new part of the aircraft's flight controls: the Maneuvering Characteristics Enhancement System known as MCAS.

The indictment claimed that Forkner could at that point have told the FAA about the change in the system, but instead "withheld that fact".

A few months later, Forkner again recommended that no reference to the new system be included in an FAA report outlining the amount of training pilots would need to fly the new plane, the indictment said.

As a result of the alleged deception, prosecutors said, FAA training specialists, pilots' manuals and training materials lacked any reference to the system.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Bullett Jr. said in a statement that Forkner "abused his position of trust by knowingly withholding critical information from the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS)".

He added that such measures deprived airlines and pilots of obtaining important information about an important part of the aircraft's flight controls.

For his part, FBI Assistant Director Calvin Chivers said, "Forkner allegedly withheld important information about the Boeing 737 Max and deceived the FAA, showing a blatant disregard for his responsibilities and the safety of airline customers and crews."

"The FBI will continue to hold individuals like Forker accountable for their fraudulent acts that undermine public safety," he added.

Two Boeing 737 Max planes operated by Ethiopian Airlines and Indonesia's Lion Air were downed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.

Investigations attributed the cause of the two accidents to defects in the Maneuvering Characteristics Enhancement System (MCAS), which led to the aircraft's nose deviation without notice to the pilot, which led to the crash of the two planes.

The two accidents led to a global shutdown of the fleet for nearly two years and created the most serious corporate crisis in Boeing's history, while the Federal Aviation Administration agreed that the plane's return to service again late last year.